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Monday, January 6

Coldest air of the season will be blowing in literally! Winds will be gusty through the start of Wednesday, & you combine winds of 15 to 30 mph with temperatures that will bottom out near 0 tonight & climb no higher than the upper single digits Tuesday, & it will feel like -15 to -30 region wide for a good chunk of tonight & Tuesday, hence the wind chill warning for all from 6pm this evening through 6pm Tuesday. Dangerous to say the least! Frostbite can happen in minutes with these types of wind chills & temps. Stay inside if you can tonight & Tuesday, if you can't bundle up & give yourself a little extra time to heat up the vehicle before heading into work.

As far as lake snows go...Significant snows of a foot or more in the most persistent snows will likely come off Lake Erie late today through Tuesday across South-Central Genesee, Wyoming & possibly Western Livingston counties. The rest of us will see limited lake snows with some squally weather at times late today & at times tonight, which should leave us with a coating to 3" or so tonight for many, including Rochester, & maybe another coating to an inch or so tomorrow.

The chill will begin to ease Wednesday & really let up late in the week & over the weekend we could be talking about some rain showers & 40s again! Stay tuned for updates on the cold, snow & eventual warm up this week.

Okay I'll bite...explain the reasoning behind your notion that this cold blast is being tremendously overblown. Because if that's truly the case then we're on the cusp of witnessing a forecast bust of many times greater magnitude than any other in history.

By the way, those lower wind chills of -30 are for overnight and into the early morning hours.

Also by the way, wind chill values in nearby Midwestern cities have already dipped below -20...

Sodus and Hamlin are right along the lake where temps will be modified. I'm not sure I buy that model map either...the low temp forecasted by News 8 is 1 degree, which coupled with their forecasted 25 mph wind should yield wind chills in the -20 to -25 range according to this chart:

So you no longer buy the map and thus do not buy that you are on the cusp of witnessing a forecast bust of greater magnitude than any other? Remember I said minus 10 in the city and surrounding counties. You keep referencing noaa and that is close to accuweather with bad weather forecasts

Back in the day you played football with concussions too and they gave you salt tablets when it was 90 out because they thought it was helpful. We have come a long way with knowledge. The smart/safe thing to do is close all the schools like many places have done in the Midwest. This is not brutal cold weather we get often.

I don't buy it only minus single digits wind chill in Hamlin. If you have ever been in Hamlin you would know when the wind blows 25 mph in the city it blows 40 mph in the open fields of Hamlin. Wind speed has a greater affect on wind chill values than temperature does. Also the big lake to the north WILL NOT modify air temps in Hamlin if they are blowing out of the SW direction. The map is flawed BIG TIME. VERY COLD IN HAMLIN.

Cold air being generally dry is never an inhibiting factor to lake effect. It's all about the temp difference between the lake and the air aloft, combined with the relative humidity. Warm lake heats the boundary layer therefore raising its maximum saturation point, thus it can hold more moisture which is picked up from the lake. That moisture is carried up into the colder air, which has a lower maximum saturation point, and the moisture is forced to condense into clouds as a result. These clouds grow rapidly and eventually precipitate. If the relative humidity of the cold air is already high (near 100 percent), the clouds form more quickly and readily, regardless of dewpoint, because the cold air is already primed with moisture. If the temp difference is very high, like what we have now, the boundary layer will be able to load up on much more moisture than the cold air aloft can handle, and thus when the moisture in the warm layer rise up into the cold layer a lot of it will be forced to condense. We currently have both of those conditions being met, the only inhibiting factor right now (and it will be temporary) is shear. That will change by later this evening.

The upper level trough is now crossing Lake Ontario from the west. The passage of this trough will ramp up the already impressive LES band off of Erie. Quick burst of snow for everyone. The winds will also pick up even more after it passes.

I am beginning to wonder if the Lake Erie LES band is feeling the effects of building ice cover. Open water must be getting less and less at the northeast end of Erie. LES off Ontario VERY Impressive. Temps down to 2 deg now as winds gust over 40mph in Hamlin. This is as about as harsh as it gets in WNY.

Some of the models have us near 50 on Saturday and Monday. Rapid snowmelt in areas getting dumped on right now. Most of us will see bare ground come Tuesday. What a turnaround. This seems to be the pattern of this winter. The YO YO affect.

no snow in Hilton, we can see bare ground thanks to the warm up, but it sure is COLD out there!! Definitely not just hype. The temp is -1 here, with windchills of -25. I have a lot to do today, but am tempted to just stay inside!

As of this morning only 3.8 inches at the airport. Amounts south of there are much higher owing to the band's placement much of the night, but it's sitting squarely over the airport right now. I'm guessing they'll finish the event with 12-18 inches.